Whenever you start a business, you might hear about all sorts of analytics. It doesn’t matter what type of business you have, where you want to go and grow with your business, or who your prospective best customer is. All of that is data, and those data points will need to be analyzed by someone! But before you despair that Operational Analytics is confusing and that you can’t do it, read this article first.
It is going to break down some of the best ways for you to learn about operational analytics, as well as everything else you need to know about them in order to make sure that your business can use them smoothly, and that your business can also gain the maximum possible advantage with them.
What Is Operational Analytics?
Whether you are in marketing, sales, customer support, or in another position dealing with data, then you know that fresh and accurate data is crucial to the success of a business. Fresh data allows you to solve problems faster, and bring the most up to date solutions to your customers, and it also allows you to provide better service across all areas of your business.
While it seems like most of the business world either has ‘trustworthy data that they can’t take action on right away’ or ‘data that can be acted upon but isn’t quite up to date’, operational analytics seeks to bridge the gap between the two.
Operations Analytics allows you to sync data directly from the data warehouse to the frontline tools that your team is using to keep the lights on. You can tap into all of the data that you are being fed by your customers and your own teams, and will be able to analyze it easily and also leverage the data to quickly take the most advantage of it.
Having a part of your business directly invested in operational analytics allows you to gain several benefits for your business, your customers, and the myriad of teams that make up your business. Here are some of the benefits that operational analytics can do for you,
It Allows You To Make Faster Decisions
One of the biggest problems with only looking at your data occasionally, or worse, having to completely compile it from several different sources and then looking at it, is the time factor. The data could be several weeks or even months old at that point, and it might not be the best time to see all the patterns you missed and potential revenue you’ve lost while being unable to act on it.
Instead, with operational analytics, you can simply see all of the problems and patterns right at hand, and respond to them in real time. This can improve your operations, and can even help you make some more money. Additionally, the increased response time that you have will lead to happier customers overall.
For example, if you find that a significant percentage of your customer base is going through your email list and interacting with every single one, but then not going directly to your website, then you can have that data and can interact with the issue. Once you investigate, you might find that your link to your website in the last email is broken, and you need to fix it. Once you do, then the engagement for new customers goes up, as do the sales.
It Can Improve Efficiency and Productivity
Sometimes in business, we can be too close to the trees and not see the whole forest. Being able to see all of the business data from the Operational Analytics can allow for the correction of inefficient issues that can cause a lot of problems for both the business and the customers. If a company sees that their checkout process is too slow, leading to a drop in sales and customers giving up before they even use the process, then they know to fix it.
The one thing you need to know about Operational Analytics, even if you take nothing else from this article, is that operational analytics is proactive when solving problems, and not reactive. It sees a problem, and rather than waiting for a customer to bring it to their attention, a company can see the problem and go on the offensive to fix it themselves.
This is beneficial in a large number of ways, and if your company is on the fence about investing in operational analytics, then they need to hop off the fence and get to using it, because it will give your company nothing but benefits in both the short and the long term. Proactive problem solving, happier customers, and more sales, what’s not to like about that.